A HISTORY OF RUTLAND until 4 September. A fresh outbreak of typhoid emphasized the importance of vigorous action, but Uppingham was not in a fit state to receive the school until the beginning of the following May. The confidence of parents remained un- shaken, and in January 1877 Thring was able to say that the numbers came up to the standard maximum of the school — a fact which speaks volumes. At the end of the stay at Borth the villagers showed their appreciation of the head master and boys by a demonstration ; and an enthusiastic greeting welcomed them back to Uppingham in May."^ Thring regarded this episode in his mastership in different ways. The cause of it, the outbreak of the epidemic, he looked on as a rebuke to him for his incipient pride and confidence in his achievements ; and the successful continuance of the school over the period of exile he compared to the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea or the Jordan, and was convinced that it showed both that Uppingham had true vitality and also that it had been marked out by God to bear witness to the truth in education ; to the Tightness of the attempt ' to give each boy true justice in work or play, "none favouring, none forgetting." ' The deliverance was afterwards commemorated year by year by a special service in the school chapel. The ' signal flags,' used instead of a school bell on the noisy, expansive beach, now ' rest in the schoolroom,' " and, with the great window, are visible reminders of those days spent by the sea. Other memorials are Thring's Borth Lyrics, and the Uppingham path at Borth itself, leading from the shore to the hills, opened by Thring in the summer of 1881, to which the school contributed £"](>■ Soon after the return a dispute arose as to whether the governors were legally bound to recoup the masters for the great expenses to which they had been put. The point was ultimately decided by the Charity Commissioners in favour of the masters, on the ground that, although the governors did not actually sanction the migration, they did so in fact by sharing in the management of the school while it lasted. As a result the governors proposed to raise money by increasing the numbers. Against this Thring fought as a surrender of the main principle for which the school stood, and, ultimately, as a compromise, the fees were in- creased, without a word of protest from the parents. The educational and financial arrangements of the school in 1880 are presented in clear out- line in the following statement by Thring : — '* All have to learn classics. All have to learn mathe- matics. All have to learn either one modern language "J. H. Skrine, Uppingham by the Sea, 119-36. " From 'The Flags,' a school song, printed in Uppingham School Songs and Borth Lyrics, 77-9. " Parkin, op. cit. ii, 201-2. or drawing or science. All have to learn some his- tory or geography. About 25 out of 320 learn science, the rest French and German, with the ex- ception of the three lowest classes, about 50 boys, who have to learn drawing. AU have to learn singing who can. About 200 are engaged in singing, exclu- sive of those whose voices are broken. There are about 120 pupils learning instrumental music at an additional charge. We also make private arrange- ments at a small additional charge for bringing on pupils who require it in special subjects, classics excepted, which, as being the main subject of the sch )ol, receives no extra teaching. I frame the annual plan of studies, as far as power goes, alcne. But, as a matter of fact, I have just been working with a committee of masters whom I selected to revise and draw up schedules. ... I do not present the plan to the Governing Body. They have no authority whatever over the internal working of the school. . . . Each boy pays j^70 per annum to the house-master. This sum does not pass through the hands of the Governing Body. Each boy pays ^^40 per annum as tuition fee. This sum does p.iss throi:gh the hands of the Governing Body, and is now distri- buted as follows : — One sixth, £6 I 5/., to the head master, fixed by law as the lowest proportion ; j^24 18/. per boy is assigned for the payment of masters up to the number of 320 boys ; ^i 10/. per boy for current expenses ; £6 I 5/. per boy for reserve fund. £100 per annum is assigned for lectures, readings, concerts, &c. ; ;^ioo per annum for prizes in the school. There is also a sum of j^i,ioo per annum from the original foundation, which is mainly expended in providing exhibitions from the school to any university or place of higher education, of the value of j^6o, ^^50 and j^40, three every year, tenure for three years, and in a small salary of ;^20o a year to the headmaster. The headmaster has no vote on the governing board. . . . The Governing Body are bound by law to consult the headmaster. . . . The masters meet in my study once a week to discuss school questions. The headmaster is not bound by their opinions. During Thring's last decade, there was only one conspicuous event in the internal history of the school, the celebration of the tercentenary of its foundation in 1884, which was equally the celebration of its recent re-foundation no longer as a local grammar school, but as a public school for the whole country. For the occasion a festival cantata was composed, with the appropriate title Under two Queens, the Rev. John Huntly Skrine being responsible for the lyrics and Herr Paul David for the musical setting. A considerable fund, to be devoted to school purposes, was raised at this time. The affair went off better than Thring had anticipated, who hated anything like self-advertisement or self-glorification and firmly believed that in many important direc- tions his work at Uppingham had failed. Both the school and its second founder were now under the public eye ; the one was regarded as a model for future schools of the same type, and the other as an inspired prophet wherever a living interest was felt in the subject of education. His chief writings. Education and School, first 296
